


synergy

by annejumps



Category: Split (2016), Split - Fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, POV Female Character, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:32:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9629885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annejumps/pseuds/annejumps
Summary: She’s never been the one in control before.





	

She’s been living in Officer Clarke’s basement for several weeks, and Uncle John is in jail. Officer Clarke is nice, without being pitying. Casey feels safe with her—it’s a new, welcome feeling, one that’s taken some getting used to. 

(Given recent circumstances, it would be fair to assume living in a basement would make her uncomfortable, but it’s quiet down here, and private.)

Officer Clarke is working another night shift, and Casey’s home alone when she hears a sound at her window. 

She looks up in the dark from where she’s lying in bed. 

It’s him. 

She can see his closely shorn hair. His glasses glint in the light, and she realizes it’s Dennis, specifically.

Somehow, she knows he won’t hurt her. All the same, however, she’s mindful of the police flashlight wedged between the mattress and the headboard, where Officer Clarke had told her to keep it.

“What do you want?” she asks through the glass.

Dennis looks at her for a long time. “I, uh,” he begins, voice muffled. He sighs, running a hand over his head. “I, we wanted to apologize. For taking you.”

She blinks at him, and pries open the window. “Come around to the door.”

He is, of course, careful to wipe his feet before stepping on the carpet.

“You wanted to apologize?” She folds her arms, waiting.

“We… shouldn’t have done that. You didn’t deserve that. We’re sorry.”

And the others did deserve it? she thinks, but doesn’t add.

“Your… your scars,” he continues, gesturing, glancing at her and then away, down again. Her scars are plainly visible under her tank top—there’s no need to hide them from Officer Clarke, when she’s just here at the house. “You’ve been hurt, you were broken.”

She nods.

“You’re healed, now. You’re better.” He raises his brow, looking at her for confirmation. She knows he doesn’t mean just the scars. She nods again, after a longer pause this time.

“Do you mind if….” He clears his throat. “Do you mind if I ask… why? What hurt you? Who? We’ve just…. We’ve all been… curious, ever since.”

Casey stares at Dennis for a long time. He doesn’t look away. Well, after weeks of telling social workers, police officers, and lawyers, why not tell Dennis?

She takes a deep breath. “My uncle. He… hurt me. For years.” She swallows. “Touched me. I couldn’t tell anyone.”

Understanding colored with anguish crosses Dennis’ tight face. His expression is knotted, pained, as if he hurts for her. She realizes he’s clenched his fists and his jaw. “So that’s why you’re living here now.”

“Yeah. I never told anyone. Not until the police came to the zoo, just before I was supposed to leave with him. But he’s in jail now. You….” She shrugs. “What you did gave me my chance.”

Dennis shakes his head. “What we did to you was—was not okay.”

“No, no. I’m not saying it was. But it led me to that chance. It got me away.” Dennis looks down. “Dennis. Come sit.”

Obediently, but gingerly, he sits on the edge of her bed, and folds his arms. She sits next to him, and looks at him for a long time; he doesn’t look at her. He seems very tense, body held very still. 

“You…. What do you do? For the others,” she clarifies.

“I protect us,” he says. “I mean, I used to. We’re usually the Horde now—the next stage in human evolution—but they let me come see you. We’ve all been very curious about you.”

“Well, this is me.” She shrugs.

He just looks at her, body still tense. It suddenly strikes her as funny, this incredibly powerful man being so nervous around her. This man—they—had been going to kill her. She’d been going to kill them. They’d let her go, telling her she was more evolved for having been broken, telling her to rejoice. And now, they were here apologizing to her. 

“Is anyone else here with you?” he asks. “Are you… alone?” He furrows his brow.

“Why?”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“Why, because anyone could break in and I could get kidnapped?” she returns, wry.

He doesn’t laugh; she’s not sure if he ever does. “You should be protected.” 

She tilts her head. “If you’d been a normal human I would have killed you with those shotgun blasts.” He keeps looking at her, frowning, and she sighs. “Do you want to stay here for the night, then?” If she lets him do that, she thinks, maybe he’ll work through this fixation and let her be, once he sees she’s not in danger.

He nods. “I’ll sleep on the floor.” He grimaces, resigned. Of course—he hates dirt. Not that her borrowed bedroom floor is dirty, but still, it’s a floor.

“You don’t have to,” she tells him. “You can sleep in my bed. The sheets are clean,” she adds.

Body still tense and formal, with his shoes off and his glasses on the bedside table he gets under the covers, carefully, almost gingerly, trying not to touch her as she gets in. That’s fine. But it’s a narrow bed, and she’s not surprised to wake up to find that one of his arms is around her waist.

She doesn’t mind; he’s warm.

He leaves after she falls asleep again but before she wakes up. Officer Clarke is in the kitchen, none the wiser. 

Casey goes to school, where she’s become a minor celebrity, with a lot more staring and whispering than she’s used to, but it doesn’t matter; she doesn’t care. She tries not to think too much about Marcia and Claire’s glaring absence in art class. She goes to therapy and never mentions Dennis coming to see her.

She’s not surprised the next night the cruiser isn’t in the driveway to hear a rapping on her door.

“Someone might see you, standing at the door like that, you know,” she tells him. “You’ll get caught.” He just grunts in acknowledgement. 

As she falls asleep, he’s not touching her.

Against all odds, she sleeps soundly with him in bed with her, for a second night. He accidentally wakes her when he withdraws his arm from around her waist, just before dawn, and she hopes he isn’t seen as he leaves. Obviously, he—they—can more than defend themselves, but. She wonders why she cares; she should want him to be caught.

Officer Clarke has the next two days off, and she doesn’t see him again until a few days later, when Officer Clarke has another night shift. They go through the same routine, but this time, when Dennis settles in and she’s pulled the sheets up, she shifts back against him, and gently but firmly pulls his arm over her. He’s very still after that, and she waits patiently for him to relax, just a bit, and then more before letting herself relax and breathe normally, and sleep.

Every night Officer Clarke isn’t there, Dennis is, and every night he’s more and more comfortable settling in just behind her, and putting an arm over her. She wouldn’t say he’s relaxed about it, exactly, but it’s possible Dennis never really is all that relaxed. This might be as close as he gets.

“Why do the… others let you take the light for so long, to be here with me?” she asks him one night, after pondering the fact that she never sees a hint of the others. “Are they upset with you? Are they upset with me? Over this?”

He shakes his head. “You’re important,” he says simply, and that’s all he says. One morning she swears she feels his fingertips tracing over her scars, but she doesn’t say anything, and neither does he. She wonders how long he intends to do this, how long the others will let him.

One Friday he comes earlier in the night than usual, but all that really seems to mean is that they get into bed earlier. Maybe he’s had an exhausting day. He’s not exactly communicative, but she can tell he’s frustrated by the fact that his shirt is wet from the rain. Maybe he’s not taking it off out of respect for her. 

“You can take that off,” she says, meaning his long-sleeved shirt. With a shrug, he does, fingers practiced and efficient on the buttons, and once he’s shed it, wearing just his undershirt he folds it neatly and sets it at the end of the bed. He doesn’t look directly at her as he gets under the covers, but she does catch him glancing at her scars again.

This time, rather than turning away, she turns to face him, watching him settle in. His arms and shoulders, in that tank top, are pretty impressive; she knew that, but now she’s really seeing it. She reminds herself that she already knows how strong he is, since he picked her, Claire, and Marcia up like they were nothing. 

When he realizes she’s facing him, staring at him, he meets her gaze, brow furrowed, frowning. “What is it?”

She shakes her head, and turns over again. His arm goes around her automatically now, and when she shifts back against him she thinks he pulls her closer. He’s so gentle about it, like he’s controlling himself. For her. Treating her with care.

She thinks about that, later: about him holding her that way when she knows what he’s capable of. She considers having that power at her beck and call, about him letting her do what she wants with him, because he wants it too.

On Saturday, he’s taken off his shirt and shoes and is sitting on her bed next to her, hands on his thighs in preparation for standing up and setting his glasses on the table, when she says, “Hey. Dennis.”

He pauses, turning to look at her, and frowns, sitting taller and looking at her for some time. Wary. 

She takes a deep breath. “I want to touch you. If… you’ll let me.”

Dennis blinks rapidly, nostrils flaring. He folds his arms. It seems to be a while before he’s gathered himself to speak again. “It’s not nice to tease,” he finally says, stern.

“I’m not teasing. Dennis. Come here.”

He moves to sit closer to her, after a pause. She reaches out to touch his jaw, fingertips light on the faint stubble, and traces down the tendon of his neck, over his pulse. He’s staring at her mouth, she realizes. She remembers Hedwig asking if he could kiss her. Dennis, she thinks, on the other hand is waiting for her to say it.

“You can kiss me.” She hears him inhale.

After a pause, he leans in to kiss her. She’s surprised, and yet not, at how gentle the press of his lips is to hers, how there’s a light trembling running through his body. 

She presses her mouth back against his, unsure at first since she’s done little in the way of real kissing, but when he parts his lips against hers she slides her tongue in, tentatively. At that he starts to breathe harder, a low groan stifled in his throat. She keeps kissing him until he’s trembling a little less, focusing more on what she’s doing rather than the fact she’s doing it. 

He kisses her inartfully but fervently then, like he never wants to stop, but knows he’ll have to. He dips his tongue into her mouth, but it’s whenever she slides hers into his, seeing what he’ll let her do, what he likes, that he groans low in his throat, and shudders slightly like he can’t help it. 

She wonders how often Dennis has touched a willing girl. If he ever has, before her. But then, she’s never been a willing girl before, either.

She’s never been the one in control before.

Casey puts her hands on his upper arms and slowly but firmly pushes him backward. At first he freezes, probably thinking she’s pushing him away, but she keeps pressing, still kissing him, until he’s on his back, with a surprised grunt as the back of his head hits the mattress. He lets her straddle him, holding him down, and keeps kissing her. She breaks to catch her breath, and blinks down at him. He looks thunderstruck, and says nothing.

“Did you… like all that?” she asks. 

“Yeah. I liked it.” He sounds hoarse.

“You can touch me,” she tells him. He blinks.

His hands move up her sides, cupping her breasts lightly, as if unsure whether he’s allowed, whether he should be, despite being given permission; she doesn’t stop him, and his hold becomes more sure. The heat from his hands seeping through the cotton of her top feels good. It’s tempting to take her top off and let him touch her bare skin, but something stops her.

He seems to like this, and as much as she likes his hands on her breasts, she wants to try something else.

She takes him by both wrists and gently pushes his arms back against the bed. He goes with it, hips bucking up. That makes her gasp—it feels good, but it startles her—and they both pause.

She sits a little more heavily on his groin, its hardness evident against the zipper of his jeans, and he grunts low in his throat in response. He strains against her hold, but there’s no panic in it, and when she presses down again there the tension leaves his arms. She rocks down against him again, experimental. The pressure of her hands holding down his arms and her weight on his hips gives him something to buck up against, but he’s not struggling or trying to break free, his hips rolling under her. 

He groans, mouth going slack, a hazy look in his eyes. He loves her holding him down like this. Who’d have guessed? 

She releases him. “Stay still,” she tells him, and slides her hands up under his undershirt. After all, she said she wanted to touch him.

He gasps, but doesn’t move his arms; she watches him clench his fists, the veins on his wrists standing out. He’s breathing hard, ribs moving under her palms, and biting his lip desperately. His skin is so smooth and warm under her spread fingers, although she can feel goosebumps following her touch. 

She glides her hands up and down his chest, watching his face. He’s looking at her like he can barely believe this is happening. She wants to turn him over, run her hands over the lean muscles of his back. Her fingers brush his nipples, and he jumps, closing his eyes tightly.

“Are you okay?” she asks him, voice shaky and hoarse, hands stilling.

He nods up at her, opening his eyes. His face is usually so closed off, tense, but there’s an openness and vulnerability in his relaxed brow now as he stares up at her, slightly dazed. He clears his throat, and with that he seems to gather himself again. “Are you?” he asks, gruff.

“Yeah.” She swallows, slowly drawing her hands out from under his top and sitting back. “You can move,” she tells him.

Almost immediately his hands frame her hips, and he strokes his thumbs over her scars, just over her waistband. Feather-light, tender, almost reverent. A soft sound catches in her throat.

They stare at each other, their breathing sounding loud to Casey’s ears, for a very long moment. “Um,” Casey finally says in a whisper, tucking her hair behind her ear, “we should… sleep now.”

She gets under the covers and he settles in behind her, wrapping his arms more tightly around her this time, but she doesn’t feel trapped or caged. 

His breath is gentle and rhythmic on the back of her neck. 

Dennis comes the next night Officer Clarke is working, but once he’s inside he almost immediately takes off his glasses, changes his posture, softens his expression, and simpers at her.

Patricia.

“My dear,” comes Patricia’s gentle, lilting English accent, “you’re looking lovely. Darling girl.” She looks calculatingly up and down Casey, gaze lingering on her scars. Her mouth pinches in a smile. Strange to think that was the same mouth she was kissing. Something lurches inside her at the thought. 

At least they hadn’t sent Hedwig.

Patricia continues. “Dennis was kind enough to bring me here to tell you—I’m sorry, dear, but he won’t be seeing you anymore. You’ve become too distracting.” She tilts her head, with a little moue of faux concern. There’s a sharpness in her gaze now. “We simply cannot have that, I’m sure you understand. We have our mission.”

Casey can only nod, somewhat dumbfounded. 

“It’s best if I’m on my way,” Patricia says, lowering her voice, conspiratorial. “If we let him have the light and see you again, it’s possible he’d get a bit worked up, and we can’t have that, can we?” She shakes her head, and smiles. Casey shakes her head too; uninterested in a discussion, she wants Patricia to leave. And, with a “Ta,” she does. 

After making sure the door’s locked after her, Casey gets under the covers. She supposes she’ll never see any of them again. (Well, maybe on the news.) But that’s for the best. She knows that.

Still, at odd moments—usually at night, alone in bed in the basement—she finds herself missing Dennis, the feel of his strong arms securely around her, and his fingertips tracing her scars.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [thedesertviking](http://thedesertviking.tumblr.com/) for all your help!


End file.
